Traffic dips for Southwest in December

Southwest Airlines has reported a decrease in traffic and load factor for December and an increase in capacity. The results include figures for AirTran Airways. Combined traffic in revenue passenger miles dipped 0.3% to 8.20 billion from 8.22 billion in the same month last year; while available seat miles or ASMs, increased by 1.8% to 10.45 billion from last year’s 10.27 billion. Combined load factor for the month declined 1.7 percentage points to 78.4% from the year-ago month’s 80.1 percent. Revenue passengers carried totaled 8.93 million, up 0.4% from 8.90 million in the year-ago month. Total trips flown in December